


How We Choose Peace

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel) Lives, Conversations, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 18:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14857694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: After the war is over, two weary Asgardians pause and take stock.





	How We Choose Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "We did save the universe, maybe it owes us one for once." (Valki post-war fluff) A brief fic for geeky--chick. I actually finished this one last week. *facepalms* Sorry about that. Flexiril's a helluva drug.
> 
> If you're on Tumblr, please follow me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/) for more fanfic stuff, and at [aflinley.tumblr.com](https://aflinley.tumblr.com/) for original writing and stuff I'm legally not allowed to talk about on AO3. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

Loki was a little surprised, when the Valkyrie joined him on the balcony of the palace instead of joining in with the festivities below. “Wouldn’t you rather be down there, celebrating? The Wakandans certainly seem to know how to throw a party.”

“They really do. Even rivals some of the feasts I remember back on Asgard. And I was down for a while, but...” She shrugged. “I could dance my ass off and drink myself stupid and find some gorgeous woman to go to bed with, I guess.”

“You guess?” Loki’s eyebrow climbed nearly into his hairline. “I would have said that was a universal certainty. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“Are you?”

The abrupt flip caught him off-guard, and before he could formulate a plausible lie, the truth lurched out. “Not really, Brunnhilde, no.” 

“Didn’t think so.” She crossed her arms over her silvery armor, and bent down to lean on the wide metal rail. To Loki’s eyes, there was something isolated about her posture. Something lonely. “Me neither. There’s only so many ends of the world that one person can handle, before it starts to gnaw at you. And now I've survived three of them.”

“I can empathize with that. And I very much wish I couldn’t. But repeated deaths do have a way of... over-sensitizing a person.”

Brunnhilde nodded slowly. The breeze was cooler, this high up, and it waved her dark, unbound hair gently about her shoulders. It struck Loki as a very personal thing, somehow, her long loose tresses. “That’s a good way of putting it. Over-sensitive... that’s how it feels. Everything hits your senses like a supernova. Too bright, too sharp, too loud. Everything’s going too fast and everything hurts, and it takes everything you've got just to keep your feet on the ground and make it to the next day.”

“Hence the thousand years inside a bottle, I take it.”

“Just about. How’d you manage to stay sober, after everything you got thrown at you?”

“Sheer dislike of losing control of my senses, I suppose, for all the good it did me. It might’ve been better for everyone if I hadn’t tried so hard.” Loki swallowed and with slow, deliberate motions, he copied her position, leaning his elbows on the railing. He was still relearning how to walk, after all, and he tended to overbalance very easily. Shuri assured him it was no more than a temporary weakness, these new, somewhat untrustworthy muscles and nerves, and promised to provide him with new daggers as soon as he was ready. It rankled at him, like grit under his skin, that he had been incapacitated in her lab, having his spinal cord regenerated, while everyone else fought around them, and that feeling of helplessness would likely never go away, no matter how often Thor wept for joy over him... “I just went mad. I lost every preconceived notion I had about myself, and I thought that meant I wasn’t who I thought I’d always been. I’d spent my whole life trying to be what other people wanted, and then discovered it was nothing but a fable.”

“Fuck,” Brunnhilde laughed softly. “We’re a mess.”

“Mhmm. Won the war, though, between the two of us. Came back from the dead, helped stop the end of the world twice, killed a Titan... what’s a little alcoholism and madness, compared to that?” Loki slide a grin sideways. It didn’t reach his eyes but it made hers light up a bit.

“So...”

“So.”

“Now what? Now that the threat of Thanos is finally gone...” Loki swallowed reflexively, and winced, but only a little. Hopefully solid food was in his near future. “What do we do?”

She shrugged, with a fraction of a second of hesitation that did not go unnoticed. “Go back to what we were doing before all this blew up in our faces. Find a new Asgard. Rebuild. Settle down.”

“Terrifying prospect, isn’t it?” He husked out a laugh, low and more cynical than he had meant to let on. “It’s almost enough to make me want to run off and start a coup somewhere. Get myself back into familiar surroundings.”

Brunnhilde’s grin was lopsided and brief, and then to his eternal shock, she turned away from the festival and carefully wrapped her arms around his middle.

“We have to choose peace,” she murmured, resting her forehead on his chest. Without meaning to, and half expecting her to snap his hands off at the wrists, Loki rested his fingertips lightly on her waist. “I don’t know how we go about that, but maybe... maybe this is a good start?”

Loki swallowed. “I... maybe.” Very gingerly, he ventured to lay his cheek on her hair. “I don’t really know how to do that, either. It hardly feels like I’ve earned it, after all the nuisances I caused. The others...” His thoughts drifted down to where he knew his brother and the rest of the reforged Avengers were celebrating. “They deserve it. Warriors, kings, heroes... But me? I’m none of those things.”

“Neither am I,” she reminded him. “But we did help them save the universe, even if we’re nothing special.”

“I never said that. I’m entirely out of the ordinary. And you, Brunnhilde, you’re a Valkyrie, you’re...” She raised her head and looked up at him, waiting. Loki hesitated, and then smiled. Just a slight upturn of his lips. “Well. Maybe the universe owes us some peace, for a change, too.”

Brunnhilde threaded a determined hand into his hair and pulled him down for a firm, wonderfully possessive kiss. 

It was all he could do not to melt into her touch... and in the end, he gave up trying.


End file.
